In many electrical connector assemblies, a male connector housing mates with a female connector housing, to provide for the electrical connection required. The assembly of the male connector housing with the female connector housing causes the male terminals to engage and electrically connect with respective female terminals. In these typical electrical connectors, each male and female terminal is configured as a single post member, i.e. with the contact section and mounting section provided on the same longitudinal axis. The female terminals are generally elastically deformable and the male terminals are relatively rigid. These types of connector assemblies require a relatively large force to engage the male and female contact sections. Also, the configuration of the terminals requires that the connector housings have a relatively large height to allow the mounting and contact sections to be provided along the same longitudinal axis.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,060 discloses an electrical connector assembly having connector housings which have terminals with rod-like contact sections provided therein. In this type of assembly, both the male and female terminals are elastically deformable, thereby allowing the force required to mating the housing to be relatively small compared to the connectors mentioned above. As the configuration of the contact sections of the terminals is relatively simple, the terminals can be closely spaced, thereby minimizing the overall width and length of the connector housings. However, as the mounting and contact sections are provided along the same axis, the height of the connector housings shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,060 is not significantly reduced. This is particularly relevant when the connector assembly is to be used in high speed applications in which the path length over which the signals travel must be minimized to avoid propagation delays.
The present invention provides for a terminal configuration which allows the signal path length and the overall height of the connector to be minimized, which providing a reliable electrical connection with a mating terminal.